The Daily Dose/October 28, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
CAPSULE BINGE TV REVIEW: From The Earth to the Moon: Regular readers of this crap know that we are big Apollo fans, so the surprise is not that we watched this but that it took us so long to get around to it because this came out in 1998. It is based on the book A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaiken, a profound and memorable book we read ages ago.
Dry, Technical Matter: We’re not the biggest Tom Hanks fans in captivity, but we have never seen anything of his that wasn’t worth the work it took to watch, and this was hardly the exception. The show follows varying people and/or aspects that attended each mission. Those with a solid working knowledge of Apollo – like us – probably nodded their heads in satisfaction at its accuracy, while those without a solid working knowledge of Apollo got a good start on one.
Fly In The Ointment: We are going to quibble about the last episode, though, which covered Apollo 17. First, it did not begin with Hanks’ usual opening, with him walking toward the camera talking about the forthcoming episode, always ending with Hanks saying a variation of “…on man’s voyage from the Earth to the moon”. Well, the last episode deprived us of hearing Hanks say “…on man’s last voyage from the Earth to the moon” which we were looking forward to. Instead, we got a documentary-style show narrated by Blythe Danner.
What The Hell’s Going On Here?: Blythe Danner? What, did she have blackmail pics of the producers, because unless she has some connection to Apollo we don’t know about, she had no credentials for this job. The whole thing, for our money, was a hot mess and we stopped watching a few minutes in.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Rating Scale Right Here: 1 – The very best; 2 – Very good; 3 – Good; 4 – OK; 5 – A steaming pile.
Final Rating: 1: Our opinion of the final episode is very subjective and you might very well like it, and Lord knows it was as technically great as every other episode. Episode four – Apollo 8 – in particular, is as good an hour as TV has produced, with the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 episodes not too far behind. Go and watch it right now, if you didn’t a quarter-century ago when it first came out.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow has a guest offer to repair the Connect 4 game. Today’s Diary.
We’ve been knocking around hotel front desks for a lot of years and this has to be a first…He said he had his tools in his room and it would be no problemo to get it repaired…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ends when Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev announces on Soviet radio that all nuclear missiles in Cuba were going to be removed. As part of the agreement, the US agreed to remove similar missiles in Turkey and Italy. The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 15 when US officials had identified the missiles from intelligence photographs. President Kennedy was notified the following day.
In 1973 – Elmore Smith of the Los Angeles Lakers establishes a new NBA record for most blocked shots in a game in a 111-98 win over the Portland Trailblazers. Smith had 17 blocks to break the record of 14 he had established two days earlier, and the record still stands. The second-highest total is 15, done three times, twice by Manute Bol in the 1980s and most recently by Shaquille O’Neal in November 1993.
In 2000 – Christina Aguilera is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the third of four consecutive weeks with Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You). It was the fifth of 20 Top 40 and eleven Top 10 hits for Aguilera, and her third of five #1s. The song also went to #1 in Guatemala and Venezuela, peaked at #8 in Great Britain, and was Billboard’s 38th-biggest song of the year. A Spanish version of the song spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Tracks chart.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
The longest way must have its close – the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The instrumental that spent the most weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 is Theme From a Summer Place, which spent nine weeks at #1 in 1960.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
For how long was Nikita Kruschev premier of the Soviet Union? – Answer next time!
